Death of the 5 arm 130 bcd triple?

Takingabreak

Takingabreak

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Well I knew triple chainsets were no longer the in thing and haven't been for a while now but...

There I was, innocently looking to source a couple of chainrings for a trusty triple crank, thought I'd cracked it when I spotted stronglight chainrings being sold relatively cheaply on ebay. So I add to basket and wait patiently. They arrive, I fit them, I ride them and then I'm left wondering why the shifting feels like something from the 70's. Then it dawned on me (I should have spotted this sooner) the rings did not have ramps or pins but were indeed just like something from the 70's. WFT screamed my thought bubble !!

So, thinking I shouldn't be such a tight wad and I should just pay for quality parts to start with my search began again - this time with my eyes wide open for ramps and pins.

Looking at the stronglight offerings I see some rather nice rings higher up the food chain - stronglight CT2's but wait wtf is going on, the 42t ring doesn't have pins.... Then I see some really nice TA rings and guess what? Yep you guessed it the 42t ring didn't have any pins.

Eventually my aged brain realised they had no pins because they were not middle rings, they were inner rings. Middle rings are nowhere to be found.

So moving on I figure I'll just buy some shimano rings instead, just like the silver ones I had but in the black that I wanted.

In the name of progress, there are no shimano triple, 5 arm, 130 bcd rings, they have been consigned to the past.

Just at the point of giving up on a trusty triple and moving to a compact double I spotted a new in box tiagra, square taper crankset on ebay for quite a lot of £££. I made an offer and it's mine, crazy times, the rings will be removed and the arms re-listed on ebay.

Top tip of the day - hang onto your middle rings.
 
If you look at Spa Cycles, who carry about the best range, you will see two sets of rings, listed as middle and inner for the 130pcd size. One set are ramped, the others are not.

Drivetrain | Chainrings - TA | Spa Cycles

spacycles.co.uk spacycles.co.uk

Also it's only really an issue with indexed front shifting (thrrrrrp-thrrrrrp-thrrrrrp).

Personally I cannot bear indexed front shifting (apart from Campag micro-adjust) as it seems always to rub and created as many problems as it solved.
 
Thanks Hamster. I did actually spot those but being fickle I wanted 42t in black. Spa Cycles pointed me towards their own brand rings which do look excellent value but, still being fickle, didn't have enough black.

The choice of ramped and / or pinned middle rings is significantly less than it used to be which made me think that the death of the triple will be caused by a lack of middle rings.
 
Don't quote me on this or ask me to explain it, but I read somewhere ring size choice affects shifting. I remember reading 52, 42, 30 shifts far better than 52, 39, 30
 
pigman said:
Don't quote me on this or ask me to explain it, but I read somewhere ring size choice affects shifting. I remember reading 52, 42, 30 shifts far better than 52, 39, 30
Click to expand...

The middle ring needs to be slightly larger than the halfway size, it seems to be due to the angle between the rings - the bottom-middle shift being less critical but getting the cage close to the ring for the difficult mid-top shift is important.
 
You also need the inside of the chain link to mesh nicely with the tooth as it shifts from one ring to the other - up or down.

If the roller sits on the (new ring's) tooth at the moment of shifting (index shifting is designed to occur with the crank arms vertical, so there's minimum strain on the chain) you can get that horrible skating as you press on the pedal, leading to sudden interface between groin and toptube😵.

Sometimes 2 rings designed for different chainsets, or even different chainring sizes, can be a complete disaster, due to being out of sync at that critical moment.

Shimano sometimes flag this up with type a and type b rings, and also double and triple markings. Technically shimano think you can only use the specific original ring on any of their indexed chainsets. Frequently they stopped making it years ago.

You can get away with all sorts of mixes, but sometimes it just doesn't work.

This can cause front indexing to be awful.
It's pretty challenging to find an original middle ring for a 25yo chainset, so loads are not quite right.

Front indexing is excellent with the right components, but that limits you to what was offered in the 1st place, and what's available now - and its not as if you can buy a modern chainset to replace a worn one, so from the manufacturer's standpoint, you need either a new groupset, or even a new bike🙄
 
There's also Spécialités TA to consider.
Or I might be thinking of MTB triple here

Surely you should be able to find something?
(perhaps you'd need to order from abroad though)

I still use a triple setup on one of my main training hybrid style bikes. 9 speed rear.
I like it because it allows very close spaced cogs on the rear. I'm using 13-23T.

Compact double is also alright (if you have more speeds at the rear to compensate)

I personally hate the fact that all the modern road options have gone with four arms now as opposed to five.
I think it looks horrible. Wouldn't purchase them even if I were a billionaire. Horrible looking they are.

I can just about tolerate four arm for mtb (even just to differentiate itself from road).
But for road? 4 arm cranksets just doesn't belong there IMO.
 
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